Ronnie, Laurie and Andrew’s Kansas City Christmas Spectacular

After one day and two nights on the plaza we were ready for something different. Laurie suggested the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art because, well, she’s classy like that. Since I had already been to the comic book store I had no further agenda. Art museum it is.

We had a pleasant breakfast — many of the kids had left — and were looking forward to an evening at the pool/hot tub without any distractions. When we went to schedule the van ride we were told the art museum didn’t open until noon (despite its website saying it opened at 10 a.m.). So we went to Crown Center to kill some time.

Crown Center was all decked out and we were able to get some nice photos. The shopping wasn’t much to speak of but we did spend quite a bit of time in the Crayola store. There was a large canvas there where The Artist was able to occupy his time while Laurie shopped.

After about an hour we had done all there was to do and it was getting crazy crowded anyway so we called the hotel and had them pick us up and drop us off at the museum.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is about as nice a museum as you’re going to find that doesn’t have dinosaurs. It has a mummy and some knights in armor and a giant Buddha and giant shuttlecocks and a room full of Impressionists’ paintings for The Wife. We spent a few hours wandering about and waiting on Laurie to catch up. Fortunately there are many benches there.

Caught the shuttle back to the hotel where we discovered water all over the floor next to the wet bar. Not our fault. Someone came up with a bunch of towels and mopped it all up but didn’t seem to concerned about where the water came from.

That night we walked back to the plaza for dinner at P.F. Chang’s. I was in the mood for Chinese and it looked like a nice place and I’d heard of it and had never been there and besides it was on the edge of the plaza closest to our hotel. The problem is Andrew can be picky and he doesn’t like sauce on things, but he does like egg rolls even if he makes a mess eating them. We got him the sweet-and-sour chicken with sauce on the side (in other words: no sauce) and that worked out well. Everything was delicious. Not eating lunch every day makes dinner much more tasty.

We returned to the hotel, which was now free of little ones, and decided to end our visit with a night at the pool. We got down to the lobby as a large, loud contingent of young adults showed up all dressed in suits and dresses. Wedding party or something. None of our concern.

Went to the pool and it was empty but there were four people in the hot tub. No big deal. We can be patient. We’ve waited three days, what’s another half-hour. A half-hour later the large, loud contingent of young adults we’d met earlier had now converged on the pool area. There were now 20 people in the hot tub (which should really only fit about six) and it was clear they were here for the long run.

We packed up our things and left. One nice young man did come out and apologize for his group, but hey, that’s the price you pay for trying to use public facilities. I would like to say we went back upstairs and there was something good on HBO, but we all know that’s a lie.

The next morning we packed it up and headed out. We stopped in Columbia for lunch at Shakespeare’s Pizza — the greatest pizza of all time. Went to one of their new locations and holy crap, that town has exploded with retail. I don’t recall any development in that area when I was a student there.

Lunch was delicious and we made it home with no problems. Laurie immediately began planning our trip for next year. And lo, a Christmas tradition is born.